Army Ants of South America
Creating a nest in perhaps an old tree stump many many thousand ants prepare to wreak havoc in their new neighbourhood. The queen ant lays her eggs (as many as 300,000 eggs) while the workers go searching for food literally killing anything that moves. With their huge numbers, insects, snakes, lizards, even small mammals are killed and dismembered for their flesh, broken down into small pieces they are brought back to the nest for consumption. They even enter human dwellings cleaning any edible matter like crumbs, spiders and insects. The newly hatched ants are cared for, fed and cleaned by their fellow ants.
The ants remain in an area for about three weeks and once they have eaten everything that moves scout ants are sent out to find a new site. Once found the ants follow the scouts trail and the entire colony is on the go, protected by the fierce soldier ants with their strong pinchers, keeping an eye out for danger along the way. There are so many ants in fact that the marching army can be a meter wide. On reaching the new site, a new nest is prepared and they begin to wreak havoc all over again.
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